Arc Survival Evolved Game Review

Father and son adrift in a small raft in the middle of the night when we came upon two flying dragons attacking a huge brontosaurus with their fire breathing weapons. The graphics were amazing and it was a glorious battle. Then I fell off the raft and drowned and he started starving to death. It was total chaos and panic for a couple of minutes. My son was getting upset that he might die because we would lose the raft. And we had spent a lot of time gathering the resources to build it. I had to put on my “dad hat” and remind him it was just a game. In the end he survived and I did not. And I lost all my stuff including my bow. What a great game!

Overall this is going to be a positive review for Arc Survival Evolved but it can be a very unforgiving game. Death can feel like a complete loss of progress. For that alone I can see why it is rated T for Teen. However, I do play Arc Survival Evolved with my 11 year old and keep to the PVE servers. PVE means “player verse environment” and PVP means “player verse player & player verse environment”. The PVP servers are too brutal for young players and the language in game chat can be pretty bad.

The basics: The game is developed by Studio Wildcard. It’s an online perpetual open world environment. It is a multiplayer crafting and survival game similar to Minecraft but with more realistic graphics. The game is still in development so there will be some bugs but for the most part it works great. Retail is $39 but we got it 50% off during the Christmas Countdown Sale on the XBOX ONE Store.

In 2017, Sony will release a light version of Arc Survival Evolved for the PlayStation Virtual Reality (PSVR) system. The game will be called Arc Park. And according to their blog it will be multiplayer! Here is the teaser trailer.

For Offworld Dads (Long Distance Dads, Military Dads, Divorced Dads) like me I would definitely recommend it if your kids are 10 and older (but stick to the PVE servers if they are around 10 to 13). Stick with Minecraft if your kids are younger than 10. Jonah and I have had this game about a week and we have played about 8 hours together. Not too bad for some father and son time when we live 3000 miles from each other 🙂

To learn more about how offworld dads can use gaming and tech to stay in their kid’s life then click here.